snarf

Slang term used in certain conferences on Electric Minds. Denotes the action of posting to a topic in the conferencing system so as to create a post which has a specific number (hence "snarfing" that number).

Popular snarfs include "century" and "millenial" numbers (e.g. posts 100, 200, 1000, 2000, etc.), as well as other magic numbers such as 42 and 69. Almost any post number can be made a snarf; one poster only snarfs post numbers that are divisible by 3, for instance. Other frequently popular snarfs are palindromic snarfs (of post numbers that read the same backwards and forwards, such as 242 or 1331), sequential snarfs (of post numbers that form an ascending sequence, such as 345 or 2324), and the popular "Karen Valentine" snarf (222).

A small furry creature on the 80's TV show Thundercats. Once upon a time, he was supposedly the guardian of Lion-O, the big hero cat, but in the episodes I remember, Snarf mostly runs away from things and whines a lot. He prefixed almost everything he says with "sneerf" or "snarf". Of course, this being a cartoon, he has to save the day sometimes. While the rest of the Thundercats are pretty much human in appearance, Snarf looks like a lizard crossed with a koala bear, but with long hair. And for some reason I think he floats around instead of having to walk.

1. To grab, esp. to grab a large
document or file for the purpose of using it with or without the
author's permission. See also BLT. 2. [in the Unix
community] To fetch a file or set of files across a network. See
also blast. This term was mainstream in the late 1960s,
meaning `to eat piggishly'. It may still have this connotation in
context. "He's in the snarfing phase of hacking -- FTPing
megs of stuff a day." 3. To acquire, with little concern for
legal forms or politesse (but not quite by stealing). "They
were giving away samples, so I snarfed a bunch of them."
4. Syn. for slurp. "This program starts by snarfing the
entire database into core, then...." 5. [GEnie] To spray
food or programming fluids due to laughing at the wrong
moment. "I was drinking coffee, and when I read your post I
snarfed all over my desk." "If I keep reading this topic, I
think I'll have to snarf-proof my computer with a keyboard
condom." [This sense appears to be widespread among mundane
teenagers --ESR]